Retro Forum

Pokemon Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Silver, Gold and Crystal all use save batteries (saughted in watch batteries) and since watch batteries only have a lifetime of 6-15 years these games have been dying lately since they are heavily used. People think to themselves, THROW EM OUT THEY'RE GONE FOREVER!!!! but they are wrong. they can be fixed 2 ways. resaughtering a battery in or carefully removing the 'pins' harnessing the battery in the arms of the charge-carriers and switching in the appropriate battery re-harnessing it in with a little bit of tape. I did method 2 to Gold and Blue because they could hold a save for more than 30 seconds and now they hold the saves perfectly!

yep, i did the same thing with 2 Earthbound carts myself. i dont see the point of trying to play a game with a 15 year old battery, just replace it or risk the data loss

the_shpydar wrote:
As @ogo79 said, the SNS-RZ-USA is a prime giveaway that it's not a legit retail cart.
And yes, he is (usually) always right, and he is (almost) the sexiest gamer out there (not counting me) ;)

My copy of Gold still saves, amazingly. It will be a sad day when the save battery finally dies. I have 190 hours on that game. (or maybe it was actually only 96 hours, don't remember.) I transferred my better Pokemon to Stadium 2 in preperation of tha day.I've known about this trick, but I'm way too scared to try it. I'm afraid I'll mess up and ruin the cart. How difficult would you say it is?

hey Rc. yes it does. and if you remove the battery it loses its save too. but if you want to save a new game to a pokemon game from the GB days, it is recommended to replace the battery before doing so. all of the pokemon SGC have seen their demises battery-wise

My copy of Gold still saves, amazingly. It will be a sad day when the save battery finally dies. I have 190 hours on that game. (or maybe it was actually only 96 hours, don't remember.) I transferred my better Pokemon to Stadium 2 in preperation of tha day.I've known about this trick, but I'm way too scared to try it. I'm afraid I'll mess up and ruin the cart. How difficult would you say it is?

I am nervous about doing that as well Retro. Lucky for me though I have a retro game store in my town where the owner will do it for you for a fee of course. Also any games that do come to him that have a battery in it to save no matter if its a NES, SNES, GB game etc. He replaces the battery before he puts in on the sales floor so you are guaranteed a new battery is in the cart you are buying from him.

I had this issue with Pokemon Silver a few years ago. Not only does the gamepak have a weird screw I couldn't unscrew, but I was told that the batteries are actually soldered in.

if yer serious get this. its a security bit set. i had to buy this exact set for one game that had completely different screws than my other security bits. as for the battery, like Tasuki said, take it in to a retro store if unsure

the_shpydar wrote:
As @ogo79 said, the SNS-RZ-USA is a prime giveaway that it's not a legit retail cart.
And yes, he is (usually) always right, and he is (almost) the sexiest gamer out there (not counting me) ;)

Yes, when the battery is removed or is not functioning, no power goes to the RAM chip in the cart. Without power, the contents of the RAM chip get corrupted. When the game detects the RAM is corrupted (almost any game with saved data should have some form of memory test), it will assume the data is empty (as when they were first made, the contents of the RAM on the carts was essentially random).

My Pokemon Yellow's battery is still holding strong, which is good, since I started a new game earlier this month. If it wound up dying, though, it wouldn't be that much of a loss, considering the dated mechanics of the game leave much to be desired and there's no way to transfer any pokemon to my copy of Pearl...

Now, when the save battery on my copy of Metroid II: The Return of Samus dies, then I'll be bummed out...

"Don't make enemies, they'll stab your heart; don't make friends, they'll stab your back. Including me, including you, all men are trash. Don't love; don't be loved. Have nothing to do with other; live in isolation."

You don't have to worry that much about the batteries in Red/Blue/Yellow. Whereas the batteries in Gold/Silver/Crystal are constantly running to keep track of the time and days of the week, Red/Blue/Yellow only use the battery while the game is being played.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the battery has to run to keep the contents of the RAM chip (that holds the save data) from being erased while the console is off (it gets power from the console when the console is turned on).It's just that in Gold/Silver/Crystal, it has to power both the RAM chip AND the clock.

You don't have to worry that much about the batteries in Red/Blue/Yellow. Whereas the batteries in Gold/Silver/Crystal are constantly running to keep track of the time and days of the week, Red/Blue/Yellow only use the battery while the game is being played.